Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, the football team gets back in the win column. I give my thoughts after the Kentucky game and a weekend recap from around USC athletics. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay.
[00:00:57] Welcome to episode 343 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And do it with me, y'. All.
[00:01:12] Just an exhale, right? I mean. Oh, like, nothing better than looking for a win Saturday night and waking up Sunday when you found one. Am I right? Oh, my goodness. That was a much, much, much needed game. Like, there were a lot of nerves. There's a lot of pressure going into this one. You know, gonna get into it in a second, of course, but kind of thought you were gonna be in for a street fight. You know, these games are typically pretty physical with uk, but, you know, I dubbed it the biggest game, the most must win. Excuse me? I dubbed it the most must win game in Shane Beamer's tenure. And, you know, I think us fans felt that. And so to be able to sit here, starting a new week, going into a bye week with that weight off our shoulders, you see your team get that win, you remember, that's why we do it. It's supposed to be fun. And it was a fun Saturday night. And, you know, here we are, so around, you know, it just makes it good. And, you know, aside from that, hope y' all had a lovely weekend out there and are ready to take on this week. So before I get into the breakdown from the Kentucky game here, I do have a bit of a weekend recap from around South Carolina. Athletics mainly updates and scores from Friday. So Friday, women's volleyball was an action. They unfortunately took the l to Tennessee 3 nothing. Women's soccer with a big win, beating Oklahoma 2 nothing in Oklahoma. And then equestrian. That's right. We're back talking equestrian here. They beat SMU 10 to 9. And maybe this is just how my dumb brain works, but smu, they are. They are the Mustangs. Their mascot is a horse. And so to beat them in equestrian, I think that's an accomplishment that is worth celebrating.
[00:03:11] Got a couple other games that'll be Sunday evening taking place after I record here. Men's soccer is taking on jmu, but yes, aside from that, all eyes on Gamecock Nation were focused on Willie B.
[00:03:26] Saturday night. These. These late games, you know, they. They have been a wild and crazy ride for us. I mean, it's. It's that. That late window is something else here. But South Carolina, of course, getting the big, aforementioned massive win, beating UK 35 to 13. And this is exactly what the doctor ordered. You know, like, this was a game where, you know, team was down in the dumps a little bit. You had faced adversity, you didn't look as crisp as you had been. You had a late game sort of collapse the, you know, last week against Missouri, and you're at home at night with your backs against the wall as a touchdown favorite in a game that you had to win.
[00:04:15] You know, and I said it last episode, if it didn't go our way, every fan had every permission to put up every red flag, smash the panic button, etc. But you didn't have to do that because what you saw Saturday night was actually this team living up to more of that potential.
[00:04:33] You saw them playing complimentary football, and you can see that when everything starts to click, that's how this team is supposed to look, you know, So I don't even know where to begin. Yeah, because there's a there, there. There's a lot to break down here. There's a lot of excitement. But you have to start with, I think, what Nicki Manwary tweeted out death, taxes and a Kentucky pick six shout out to the defense. So being able to generate those points absolutely shifted the momentum. You know, when the game started, Kentucky marched down the field with ease and scored right off the bat. South Carolina, of course, was able to answer, going to talk about that in a second.
[00:05:17] And then Kentucky was also able to go down with relative ease in their second drive, I believe it was. And South Carolina held them to a field goal that was a big, big stop, because largely after that, something clicked for the defense. And the front seven was just so much more aggressive and was able to bottle up their running game a little bit more, which forced the hand of Kentucky to have to throw. And then that is what we had expected and hoped to see going into this year from the defense, where you were going to have a defensive backfield that was so good that it was going to cause coverage sacks and mist by the quarterback and generating those turnovers. And I think that's ultimately what you saw. You know, you're talking about a quarterback in Kentucky was his first road game as a starter. The kid's a freshman, so you have to be aggressive. You have to be able to force him to make mistakes. And far too many times in South Carolina history have we seen freshman quarterbacks light us up in a moment where they really shouldn't. And so shout out to Clayton White and his entire defense and his staff for being able to get into the head of that quarterback and to affect him. Because when you saw that, that fumble, that scoop and score, that's Dylan Stewart doing Dylan Stewart things. And then you have an aggressive, active defensive line around him. Shout out JT Gear for being able to scoop that up and score. And then in the pick six, you're looking at a veteran explosive player in Kilgore making that play. But you have this active defensive backfield that knows where to be, that knows how to read the eyes of the quarterback and ultimately playing again, complementary football in the defensive side by disrupting the timing and the accuracy of that quarterback. Because you have a defensive line, really a front seven that was just in his head and was affecting him all night. And that timing of that scoop and score was perfect. Like Kentucky had the momentum. South Carolina was down at the time and that shifted the mood inside Williams, Bryce, that shifted the mood on the sidelines and it shifted momentum for the rest of the game because then Kentucky was playing from behind. They couldn't afford to, you know, take, you know, tough 12 yard gains early. They were throwing it on non obvious passing situations and it led to more mistakes. And I really think it was those early downs defensively for South Carolina to get the stops in that opening drive or two, really, I guess any drive. But if Kentucky was able to generate a good run on first down, which it seemed like they tended to do, they tended to run on first down.
[00:08:18] If they were getting five or more yards, it made things so much easier for them. And then they tended to convert and it was a new series.
[00:08:27] If you noticed that when South Carolina was able to bottle them up early and stop them for no gain on first down or maybe just two yards, it forced the hand of Kentucky and that's when you saw their drives either stall or make a mistake. So shout out to the defense because when anytime you're able to generate points, let alone 14, that's going to be a tough, tough uphill battle for your opponent. And that is exactly what happened. And you saw your big players making big plays, your Kilgore, your Dylan Stewart's JT gear, etc. Brandon C. Say he almost had an interception too. He had a nice game. And I just thought that you saw the linebackers look more active and look more aggressive. It really was after that second series where you stopped Kentucky and held them for three, I think that, I don't know, that was like a boost for the Team, I think it showed them like, hey, we can get the stop when we need to. These guys are not going to run all over us. I thought the tackling certainly looked better than it did against Missouri. There were a few missed ones, but better than it did against Missouri. And I think you saw them flying to the football gang, tackling and just playing as a unit. And it was really, really impressive to see defensively. Now, offensively, I thought that while we can get into it in a little bit here, I thought that was probably the most complete game we've seen. I know the third quarter there were no points, right?
[00:10:00] But I think you saw an efficient and smooth passing attack.
[00:10:08] Pull up the numbers here and get Lenores box score. But I thought you saw an efficient passing attack. He only went, you know, he only had 14 attempts. Lenores did. He went 11 for 14, 153 yards. But he didn't need to do too much. Like when he was getting the ball out. You saw guys making plays, Vandravius continuing to come on and continuing to shine, and you see why people were excited about him. But I liked the play selection and the diversity of those passing calls where it wasn't relying too much on the deep ball, where I thought we were going to see a little bit more of that. But you saw a couple rollouts where people have been calling for that. You got some where Lenores rolled out to either side, three through on the run. You saw a couple of those short kind of slant, those drag routes where Brady Hunt caught one and he, he had a nice catch and run there. You saw that really, that intermediate to kind of medium deep shots. You saw Vandravius almost take one to the house there and you saw him distribute the ball like it was really the Vandravius show with five catches. But I mean, Brady Hunt got in the action, Nick Harbor, Mazio, Brian Rowe, like you saw a couple of screens, I had been calling for that. You saw the screen pass go to. Go to Sewell. I think it was so I think passing wise, Lenores was efficient and he did what he had to do. And you get the ball to your playmaker's hands and you let them, you let them work.
[00:11:43] Finally able to see some sort of rushing attack. I mean, Lenores generated a lot on his own and there were a few designed runs which I know people had wanted to see more, and those generally looked pretty good. You know, you saw him almost get that touchdown. He converted a few first downs during that. But you saw the Lenores scrambling and making those off schedule plays. That were just backbreaking for Kentucky. And that's where Lenoris is at his best. I think this Kentucky game really was the Lenores that we all remembered and we fell in love with because his strength last year and you see it this year too, it wasn't necessarily a dude who was having these designed runs 15 times a game. His strength was the ability to shed blockers.
[00:12:41] Shed would be sacks, excuse me, to shed defenders, roll out and scramble and either make a great throw on the run or scramble and convert for a first down. And that's what you saw more of last, last Saturday, right, against Kentucky. So he looked more like himself. He looked more comfortable. In my opinion, it was the most comfortable he looked from, from beginning to end.
[00:13:08] It was not a perfect night from the offense, but I think this was the most complete game in terms of throwing and running from Lenoris. But then we were able to generate a little bit of a running attack. It wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than we saw against Missouri. Matt Fuller, I think is a guy who you have to keep feeding. You know, he's a young player, but he's been, you know, he's been on the team. I believe it's his second year now.
[00:13:37] He looked good. He looked like having the skill set of someone you can lean on. I like Rasul. He had those two touchdowns, short yarded situations. That six yard touchdown run early in the game. Don't bat an eye at that. That was a good run. But Sewell looks to make a guy miss. Sewell does his best running when he has that space and he's incredible when he does. In the sec you don't always get that though. You need to be able to run between the tackles. Oscar Attaway. I think I'm a fan of his. I think he brings a good skill set to the table, but he just hasn't been able to generate those explosive runs. Matt Fuller looks to be a guy that more and more playing time he's getting. He had 19 attempts, he got that late touchdown.
[00:14:24] I think that's someone who could be a big player for South Carolina, someone who can run between the tackles a little bit better than Sewell. He can make a guy miss. He's strong and I think that's someone who should be featured a lot more. Now.
[00:14:39] What I liked about the offense was late in the game, when it was a 15 point game, Kentucky cut it down.
[00:14:48] It was a moment where you had to score. And what have I said a few times this season, I'VE said when the offense has needed to score, while it hasn't always been pretty, they've tended to do so notwithstanding. Maybe Missouri fourth quarter, but we're not talking about that.
[00:15:05] And that's exactly what the team did. They went on a good extended drive, killed a lot of clock, brought it into the fourth and punched it in. And that to me was a really, really good drive and it was exactly what the team needed to do. You put the game out of reach, not even a question.
[00:15:26] And yeah, I mean, look, I've seen some discourse out there and if you want to take this route after a win, you certainly can. I'm not going to do it, but there's folks out there pointing out that the offense scored 21 true points and that if you take away the two defensive scores, the result of the game would have been 21 to 13.
[00:15:52] And in the meaning they would have been a one point game, 14 to 13 going into the fourth quarter before we scored at the end. Which, you know, probably is pretty in line with how these Kentucky games have tended to go. But to that I have, I have a few responses like a find some joy. Okay? Like if, if we can't enjoy the win, what are we doing here? Like the team needed a win.
[00:16:18] You saw some balanced attack on the offense, guys in motion. I felt that it was the best game we've seen from the offense to date. So let's celebrate that.
[00:16:28] And that's complimentary football.
[00:16:31] Like when you're able to do that and the offense might have a series or two that doesn't go their way, the defense picks them up and either gets a turnover, generates points or gets them the ball back, which happened multiple times throughout the game.
[00:16:47] And then when the defense lets up some points late in the game and you really need the offense to do their job with their backs against the wall a little bit, they went out and did it.
[00:16:58] And they were able to stay on the field longer than they had this season, which I think is why you saw the defense staying aggressive late. They weren't as gassed.
[00:17:08] That's what good football teams do. You pick each other up and then look, you generate the two turnovers and they scored, that's two less opportunities for the opportunity for the offense to try and score. Like, who's to say that if Kilgore gets tackled, you know, in the red zone that we don't get points? I'm sure we do at least three.
[00:17:35] And same thing with the, with the sack, but you're able to get points. You Take that. Absolutely.
[00:17:40] So you can look at that and you can call that out if you want.
[00:17:46] But I'm looking at it that there were opportunities that two less chances basically for the offense to go out there. And I'll take a defensive score any day of the week. And when you have a good defense and guys who can make those game changing plays, like, yeah, you're going to lean on them a little bit and they're going to pick you up and they're going to be the change in momentum that you need.
[00:18:11] And then you have a fantastic quarterback who can go out there and put the team on his back when he has to do it and make the plays when he has to do. And that's what happened.
[00:18:20] I mean, there's certainly things you have to clean up. You know that really long bad sack that Lenores took, that was reminiscent of the long bad sack he took against Mizzou.
[00:18:30] And I think it's him leaning on his natural ability to not get sacked. I think 95% of other quarterbacks get that rusher on them and they just go down. But Lenoris is able to try and fight him off. Just wasn't able to shake it. So, you know, of course. And yes, you need to be able to generate more of a rushing attack. You need to continue to do that. The offensive line working through, some guys shuffling around like they need to continue to improve. So there's things going into this bye week that certainly you want to continue to improve on. But I look at this as you're able to go into this week with a lot of momentum. You're back in the win column, you have a winning record, you got a sec win, got that off your back. And now you can go into this week, rest up, get healthy, work on a few of these things, but you can double down on some of these things that you did well.
[00:19:28] And if the offense can continue to come along, and especially if you got a guy like Matthew Fuller back there who can continue to improve and provide some stability in the rushing attack and then guys like Vandravius keep coming along. Brian Rowe made a play, Nick harbor, of course Mazio got involved. I'd like to see him more. So going into this bye week, I think there's plenty to build on and there's plenty to continue to try to improve. But enjoy this. This was a much needed win. I'm happy with it.
[00:19:59] That was a fun night and gotta wait a little extra with the bye week, but I think it comes at a good time for this team. But with that y'. All, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecocks. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecocks. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'. All. Go Cox.
